and his Ornithological Work. 
7 25 
accepted a commission in the Rifle Brigade in which he 
had already served as a Militiaman, bat his heart was not 
really in soldiering, except in so far as it enabled him to visit 
•unknown lands in search of birds. In 1902, when he had 
completed the description of his Gold Coast collections, we 
find him organising an expedition to visit the little-known 
island of Fernando Po. This was one of his most successful 
undertakings, for he ascended the Pico Santa Isabel, which 
attains an altitude of 10,800 feet, and discovered a large 
number of new species, including the remarkable long-tailed 
Tree-Warbler (Urolais maria ) representing a new genus 
and species. With his Portuguese collector Jose Lopez, 
who had developed the most remarkable talent both for 
shooting and preserving small birds, he arrived at Fernando 
Po on 27th October, 1902, and remained on the island till 
the middle of December, when his leave being nearly up he 
was obliged to return to England. Describing the ornitho¬ 
logical results of this Expedition he writes '—“ The work 
of the whole expedition resulted in a series of nearly 
500 specimens representing 3 new genera and 103 species, 
of which 35 have proved to be new to science. I owe this 
remarkable success to having traversed the high ground, 
my predecessors having confined their attentions to the 
lowlands. The wealth of bird-life on the island is indeed 
wonderful, and proportionally larger than in the forest- 
region of the adjoining West Coast.” A full account with 
coloured figures of some of his more remarkable dis¬ 
coveries on this occasion will be found in f The Ibis,’ 1903, 
pp. 330-403. 
Boyd Alexander’s next scheme was of a much more 
ambitious character than any of his previous undertakings, 
and is now famous all over the world as the Alexander-Gosling 
Expedition, which crossed Africa from the Niger to the Nile 
and explored the countries bordering Lake Chad. The whole 
journey occupied three years, from 1904 to 1907, and resulted 
in the tragic deaths of both his companions, his brother Capt. 
Claud Alexander (Scots Guards) and Capt. G. B. Gosling 
(Rifle Brigade). Undaunted by these terrible misfortunes 
